Broken Frontier

Bobby and Mark plan to rob a bank. This bank is not what it seems, though, and neither are Bobby and Mark. Who and what the truth is only starts the adventure.

Writer Steven Grant is known for writing hard edged tales with healthy doses of sardonic wit, sarcasm, and black humor. 2 Guns shows no signs of breaking that trend and that is a good thing.

Bobby Beans and Mark Stigman are new partners who have found the perfect target – a bank whose deposits are not exactly clean. There is no honor among theives – or criminals of any ilk, but then again, neither Bobby nor Mark are quite the criminals they seem... or are they? The question becomes just who may be crossing whom and how many lives may get mangled in the process.

The world Grant paints with this comic is one filled with shades of gray. Good guys may not be as good as they seem and being a bad guy may not necessarily be as bad as it appears on the surface. The characters of both Bobby and Mark come across as cocky and flip that could easily slip into being annoying but instead manage to be just endearing enough. The fact that the tension comes from the characters and not the situation is also a plus. Grant does not focus on the how of the bank job but rather the why the characters are doing this and it sets this title above your average heist tale.

The art by Mat Santolouco seems an odd fit at first for this crime/noir story. One expects to see heavy inks and shading and rough edged figures here but instead Santolouco’s work is blocky, cartoony, and clean. When combined with the colors by Popart Studios, it creates a bright, colorful, cheerful look that actually works with the story instead of against it.

2 Guns has a complex plot that takes a while to actually sit down and read – this is not a story you breeze through quickly and there are plenty of moral shades of gray to consider as well as crosses and double crosses to anticipate. If you like your stories to be twisty with the promise that they will switchback on themselves at least once before all is said and done then this is a title for you.